Our email box is overflowing with your comments on Gov. Andrew Cuomo's "toughest in the nation'' gun control law.

The NY Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act, passed by the Legislature and signed by Cuomo on Jan. 15, redefines what qualifies as an assault weapon, institutes background checks for private sales, restricts ammunition magazines to seven bullets, mandates mental health professionals to report patients who make serious threats, increases penalties for gun crimes.

The law has drawn criticism for the haste in which it was passed and what many feel are its curbs on citizens' Second Amendment right to bear arms. Cuomo's popularity has taken a hit.

Here are some of your views on gun control. Want to add your voice? Leave a comment below, or submit a letter of your own.

Constitution guarantees my right to own a gun

To the Editor:

When was the last time you read the Constitution of the United States? Maybe you should before expressing an opinion on gun control.

The second of 27 amendments says, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.'' You have the right to not have a gun, but where does it say you have the right to tell me I can't? I am a good guy and it is already near impossible for me to get a carry/conceal permit in this state. My rights have been infringed now and this state is just making it worst. This is politics at the worst.

We all know that this agenda has been around a long time by those who want no guns but the problem is we have constitutional rights and taking that away should only be done by the people, not the politicians. If you say the constitution is out dated and written to long ago, that only tells me you have not read it lately. Do it now.

Bill Rodgers
Camillus

Second Amendment is about arming the militia, not individuals

To the Editor:

Handguns have only one purpose: to be used by one person to kill another. Therefore, access to handguns should be limited to police officers and security guards during tours of duty.

If one believes that one's life is in such a danger as to warrant a handgun for self-protection, a sworn description of that danger could be filed in court, seeking a judge's approval of such access.

Rifles and shotguns are used in hunting and in legitimate military operations. Therefore, purchase of such an instrument should be validated by a current hunting license and a description of the safe and secure storage that is planned.

While the National Rifle Association and others vigorously demand individual gun ownership, based on the Second Amendment to our Constitution, that amendment clearly states that "A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a Free State ...'' and nowhere in that amendment, or elsewhere in the Constitution, is an individual righit to bear arms validated.

Inasmuch as individual gun ownership in this country is a public health problem and indeed, a huge public menace, such ownership and access should be firmly and effectively challenged.

Francis J. Durgin, M.D.
Fayetteville

Americans are free to choose fast cars and powerful guns

To the Editor:

Several letter-writers have suggested that we don't need assault style weapons to hunt and more than five or six bullets from a revolver to protect ourselves. With this reasoning,we should all be driving Mini Coopers instead of Corvettes, Mustangs or Chargers. We should all be living in 1,000-square-foot homes, too.

This is America, land of the free. A lot of us like fast cars, big homes and guns. This country wouldn't exist today without guns. Honest, law-abiding citizens in this country have a right to hunt, target shoot or collect any semi-automatic firearm they choose. And lets keep it that way.

Jerry Lord
Syracuse

Sharp objects kill more New Yorkers than rifles; where's the law on that?

To the Editor:

How many thousands of lives do you think Gov. Cuomo’s midnight laws are going to save by limiting access to rifles and limiting magazine capacity? As a numbers guy, I would expect that the rush to get legislation on the books indicates that we are going to be able to save thousands of fellow New Yorkers by outlawing “assault rifles” and limiting magazine clips to a capacity of seven.

So to see how many thousands we could save, I looked at the data provided by the FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2011 (Excel spreadsheet).

I was fascinated to discover that 26 New York residents died in 2011 from “hands, fists, feet, etc. (which includes pushing someone).'' The FBI report goes on to show 160 deaths from “knives or cutting instruments” and 143 from “other weapons.” Since none of these methods of committing murder received the slightest attention in the new legislation, I assumed that the total number of homicides in New York state from assault rifles must have been much greater than all of these other methods combined.

Boy, was I wrong! As you will see, if you care to have any facts regarding this very emotional and political topic, the total number of people murdered with any type of rifle in New York during 2011 was five! “Sharp things” were used in 32 times as many homicides as all rifles – who would have guessed that based on the governor’s legislation?

Unfortunately, our politicians use tragedy for political gain and make ridiculous and disingenuous statements such as “if it only saves one life ...” If saving lives was their primary goal, they would outlaw tobacco and alcohol and lower the speed limit to about 25 mph. Going after law-abiding gun owners and demonizing an inanimate object is so much easier than addressing the underlying mental illness issues the most recent murders have displayed. Denying parole for someone who beat his own grandmother to death with a hammer would have saved several lives. Getting a teen much-needed mental help before he shot his mother in the face multiple times could have saved 26 lives. Making me a criminal because my 35-year-old .22 caliber rifle has a 10-shot clip is not going to save any lives.

Obviously the United States has a growing violence problem. We need a factual discussion on how to best deal with the issue, not more political grandstanding and a rush to sign legislation at midnight.

First of all, making a class of weapons illegal is one issue that can be debated and resolved, but that isn't what's happened. The "mental health records" that are such a big part of the much broader new legislation's promotion can't go into the existing criminal history database because federal confidentiality constraints will prohibit it. That pertains to whatever weapon, owner or ammunition purchaser is to be registered.

Secondly, with respect to persons who have handgun permits, licensees have already submitted to a thorough, fingerprint-based record check and provided personal references, submitted to a police investigation, and paid a hefty fee to exercise their "right". They are already "in the system," and the system allows immediate notification to the authority that issued their license of any new arrest. So why require a licensee to present him/herself every few years to re-establish their lawful citizenship? Because the true purpose of this new provision is to further discourage law-abiding citizens from exercising their rights and to bleed them for revenue if they do.

The state representatives who are exploiting the Newtown tragedy to garner political favor know it, and unless Fitzpatrick is dumber than I think he is, he knows it, too.